Ohana hopes to make violence against transgender people a hate crime

New Likud MK Amir Ohana’s first bill will be to make violence against transgender people a hate crime, he announced Monday.

"We’ve seen in the last year quite a few incidents of attacks on transgender people just because they are part of the trans community, which is why I decided to make my first bill an amendment to the Penal Code, that would add gender identity to what can make an assault a hate crime. Someone who attacks someone because of gender identity will get a double sentence," he said.

The current section of the criminal code on hate crimes says that crimes motivated by racism or the victim’s sexual preferences carry double the sentence of the same crime with a different motive.